Old-Time Religion Singing, Preaching And Praying Under Big Top Rouses The Faithful In Old-Fashioned Revival

The gospel songs and old-time piano sounds were familiar church fare. The aroma wasn’t. Once under the giant tan tent, each breath was full of the county-fair scent of wood chips.

It was an old-fashioned camp meeting, the kind of outdoor revival common during pioneer times.

Abundant Life Church hoisted a big top behind its building at 16607 E. Broadway to bring back the frontier spirit of the old revivals. The Rev. Don McKinney, who grew up in Arkansas, said the camp meetings were part of life in the South of his youth. He won’t say how old he is - “I’ve been with Noah on the ark,” he joked - but McKinney has been a preacher for 40 years.

The nightly revival meetings in the Valley began Sunday and continue through June 30.

By 7 p.m. Monday, it was chilly. Wind blasted beneath the tent, and its ceiling rippled like ocean swells. But 100 or so people still showed, filling a good portion of the folding metal chairs set up under the tent. People wore coats and some buried themselves under blankets.

Many visitors had never been to a camp meeting before. A few had. Ruth Zeck, the mother of three fortysomething sons, remembered going to Oral Roberts camp meetings when she was young. “People just come as they are and worship,” she said. “We don’t go crazy or anything. The Lord just moves.”

The whole tent thing was new to 41-year-old Phil Renz. He went for the first time Sunday, then returned Monday night. “They know how to preach,” Renz said. “They don’t hold anything back.”

The service began as a choir walked from the back of the tent to the front. The congregation stood up. People nodded with each verse as they sang “Highway to Heaven.” Some tapped their toes as the electric organ shuddered.

The more songs that were sung, the more people loosened up. Some made fists, waving them to the beat. A few held hands in the air as everyone sang “Alive, alive, alive forever more, my Jesus is alive…”

Some songs were loud. The piano player, Raymond Hutchinson, sang in an earthquake of a voice that rumbled out of him and hit listeners in the gut like a jackhammer. Other songs were slow, even sleepy.

After about an hour, the preachers, who sat in stuffed chairs on the stage and were dressed to the nines, decided the congregation was ready.

A guest pastor from Arizona took the microphone and said a prayer. “Our desire is to come right into your presence, Lord!” he said in a vibrato voice, rocking on his heels.

Then McKinney introduced the tent revival meeting’s main event, an evangelist from Branson, Missouri.

“We’ve got with us the greatest preacher you’ve ever heard,” McKinney said, with his characteristic warm grin. “And you’ve even heard me.” Everyone laughed.

Kris Jackson moved to the microphone. At 39, he was younger than McKinney, and his hair was neatly parted to one side. He didn’t have McKinney’s light-hearted manner. When he spoke, a cannon went off.

His message was about the decline of America. “We want you to get back to good-old patriotic values,” Jackson boomed. “Don’t forget God! Here tonight folks, the Bible says ‘Don’t forget God!”’

He stepped down from the stage, and walked close to the people seated up front. “In America, we are looking at hell … The television set, think about it, prime time is crime time is slime time!”

Jackson got louder, and the crowd’s echoes of “Amen!” became more frequent. He paced back and forth.

Once in awhile he would stop. “Are you froze yet, or can I still preach?”

“Preach!” came the unanimous reply.

As the end of the service approached, some people were crying with loud sobs. The hands of most people were in the air, and some kept repeating “Hallelujah!”

“We’re in the blood business, folks!” Jackson cried. Then he asked everyone who didn’t know Jesus to come to the altar. About 30 or so went forward. When he asked others to come up and pray for the newly saved, pretty much everyone else went forward.

“Raise your hands and start praying for revival!” Jackson cried.

After the crescendo, Jackson turned the stage back to McKinney, who led everyone in a hymn. The piano resumed its churn. The service ended how it began, with everyone clapping and singing to an old-time gospel song.

More than two hours after the meeting began, people filed out to their cars. McKinney slapped people on the back and smiled.

By the end of the night, you couldn’t smell the wood chips.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 4 Color Photos